Actress. She worked as a radio actress and fashion model and dentist's assistant before winning the Paramount Studios' nationwide contest to find an actress for the part of "Lota the Panther Woman" for the 1932 film "Island of Lost Souls", the first sound screen adaptation of the 1896 H.G. Wells novel The Island of Dr. Moreau, co-starring alongside Charles Laughton, Bela Lugosi, Richard Arlen and Leila Hyams. Burke was picked from the eventual four finalists which had also included Verna Hillie and Lona Andre. In 1936 her contract with Paramount was terminated. She married dancer Jose Fernandez in March of 1936 and they moved to New York where Burke worked in a radio drama during 1940. She later married Forrest Smith, but little is known about her for the last forty years before her death. She died of respiratory failure due severe asthmatic bronchitis.
Actress. She worked as a radio actress and fashion model and dentist's assistant before winning the Paramount Studios' nationwide contest to find an actress for the part of "Lota the Panther Woman" for the 1932 film "Island of Lost Souls", the first sound screen adaptation of the 1896 H.G. Wells novel The Island of Dr. Moreau, co-starring alongside Charles Laughton, Bela Lugosi, Richard Arlen and Leila Hyams. Burke was picked from the eventual four finalists which had also included Verna Hillie and Lona Andre. In 1936 her contract with Paramount was terminated. She married dancer Jose Fernandez in March of 1936 and they moved to New York where Burke worked in a radio drama during 1940. She later married Forrest Smith, but little is known about her for the last forty years before her death. She died of respiratory failure due severe asthmatic bronchitis.
Bio by: MC
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